At Confirmation Hearing, Reich Pledges New Investment in Education, Training

WASHINGTON--Transition activities continued to move at a fast pace
last week as confirmation hearings on President-elect Bill Clinton's
Cabinet nominees began and Mr. Clinton received reports on pending
education-policy issues.

At his confirmation hearing to be Secretary of Labor, Robert B.
Reich told members of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee
that one of his top priorities would be to create a pathway to good
jobs for the 75 percent of young people who do not complete four years
of college.

He also suggested that the nation consider some type of
certification system for technical workers without college degrees, a
proposal that has received wide backing in the business and education
communities.

Mr. Reich, a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at
Harvard University, emphasized that America's economy will be defined
in the future by the "skills and the capacity'' of its people.

He pledged to make the Labor Department the "department of the
American workforce--a center of America's strategy for economic
growth.''

The appointment of the 46-year-old lawyer, one of Mr. Clinton's
closest friends and economic advisers, is widely viewed as a means to
elevate the status of the department.

Interagency Cooperation

Mr. Reich also told panel members that revised estimates regarding
the ballooning federal deficit, released last week, would not deter the
incoming Administration from its long-term commitment to invest in
education and training, even as it works to reduce the debt.

Mr. Reich pledged to work with the Education Department, other
federal agencies, and the states on a number of job-training issues,
including the creation of school-to-work transition programs and the
conversion of military jobs to peacetime employment.

He also stressed the need to integrate the more than 100 federal
job-training programs into a comprehensive system of "one-stop
shopping'' for prospective workers.

But he said the problems of displaced workers and the
noncollege-bound are "so large'' that attempts to review and coordinate
existing programs should not delay the creation of new initiatives on
their behalf.

Finally, Mr. Reich said that "national service is an idea whose
time, in my opinion, has come.''

And he denied press reports that he is rethinking his commitment to
impose a 1.5 percent payroll tax on employers to support worker
training.

Another Cabinet post with implications for education policy,
Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be filled by Donna E.
Shalala, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin.

Ms. Shalala, a longtime friend of Hillary Clinton, had been most
frequently mentioned as a candidate for the Education Secretary's post.
Most of her academic work has focused on school finance, governmental
organization, and urban-development issues.

She succeeded Ms. Clinton as the chairwoman of the advocacy group
Children's Defense Fund, and is also the chairwoman of the
research-and-development advisory committee of the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards.

She has held the chancellor's post since 1988, and was previously
the president of Hunter College in New York City. She also served as an
assistant secretary in the Department of Housing and Urban Development
in the Carter Administration.

Her confirmation hearings may prove more contentious than those for
Mr. Reich and Mr. Riley.

Ms. Shalala, who has been tagged with the nickname "the high
priestess of political correctness,'' is widely considered to be the
most liberal of Mr. Clinton's Cabinet appointments.

Observers say Ms. Shalala has most recently earned her reputation
for her efforts at the University of Wisconsin to increase minority
representation, introduce a more multicultural curriculum, and
establish a speech code.

The agency Ms. Shalala is to head is one of the government's
largest. It manages early-childhood-education programs, including Head
Start, welfare initiatives, and child-nutrition and -vaccination
efforts.

Mr. Clinton's choice for Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, is
another potentially controversial appointment. As director of the
Arkansas Health Department, Ms. Elders has been a strong supporter of
school-based clinics that distribute contraceptives.

Transition News

In other transition developments:

Mr. Clinton has received reports from teams charged with
recommending legislative policies and strategies in the areas of
education and training, child welfare, and student aid.

The latter paper focuses on the President-elect's promise to allow
all students to borrow for college and pay back the money through
community service or payroll deductions. (See story, page 1.)

A transition aide said the education and training report recommends
which programs Mr. Clinton should try to enact early in his Presidency
and includes suggestions for implementing his campaign pledge to
establish a national apprenticeship program.

Aides have said Mr. Clinton may opt to propose quick passage of
legislation similar to S 2, a bill that died at the end of the last
Congress. It included provisions establishing a federal role in
developing national standards and testing and a grant program to
support the development of state and local reform plans. (See Education
Week, Dec. 9, 1992.)

Aides said, however, that Mr. Clinton has made no decisions on
education policy issues yet.

With Cabinet officers selected, the job of filling sub-Cabinet
posts--a task that is headed by Mr. Riley--has begun in earnest.

Transition officials said that no education posts had been filled as
of late last week, but that some of those selections could be made as
early as this week.

The "cluster groups,'' charged with studying the structure of
individual agencies and pending issues new Cabinet members will need
to address, completed their work last month.

The team studying the Education Department under the direction of
Johnnetta B. Cole, the president of Spelman College, met informally
with representatives of education groups before completing its mission.
Participants said the upcoming reauthorization of elementary and
secondary education programs was the main topic.

At his economic summit last month, Mr. Clinton heard from the
presidents of the nation's two largest teachers' unions--Keith B.
Geiger of the National Education Association and Albert Shanker of
the American Federation of Teachers. Marian Wright Edelman, the
president of the C.D.F., also testified.

Other participants echoed their calls for increased spending on
education and child-welfare programs.

Senior Editor Lynn Olson contributed to this story.

Vol. 12, Issue 16

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